MAGIC Fund, a global collective of founders that backs other founders solving daunting challenges, has announced a $30 million Fund II raise to continue backing early-stage startups across Africa, Europe, Latin America, North America, and Southeast Asia.
This raise will support early-stage startups globally, across all sectors, with funding between $100,000 and $300,000. The firm’s focus will be on fintech, healthcare, Software as a Service (SaaS) and enterprise, women’s health, and developer tools.
Since the firm’s first fund launched in 2017, MAGIC has invested in 70 companies at pre-seed and seed stages across these emerging markets including Nigerian API fintech, Mono, Bamboo, and home management company, Eden Life.
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MAGIC Fund has 12 founders who act as general partners. The company earlier raised $1.5 million Fund 1. According to TechCrunch, the firm’s $1.5 million Fund I performed well with a 5x return over three years. Some of these founders joined MAGIC Fund as partners for this raise when their companies exited. A third of the fund was contributed by the firm’s founder general partners (GPs), with the rest contributed by its limited partners (LPs).
For Fund II, new partners include Stitchroom’s Thomas Chen, Medumo’s Adeel Yang, Juice’s Michael Lisovetsky & Troy Osinoff, who will collectively manage North American investments.
Its Africa-focused investments will be overseen by Kauffman Fellow Temi Marcella Awogboro, while Helium Health’s Dimeji Sofowora and Alison Cheung will handle European assets. Southeast Asia investments will be led by Payfazz’s Hendra Kwik and Oxy2’s Elvis Zhang.
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The VC firm has also created a cohort specifically to invest in companies founded by women, led by Alison Cheung and Tito Ovia.
MAGIC Fund’s support for these startups will go beyond money. The venture firm also aims to provide them with partners that have experience and expertise. According to the firm, “We provide guidance in the rigorous discovery of product-market fit, facilitate introductions, and support expansion into new regions, strategy, marketing, fundraising, and hiring.”
What they are saying
According to Adegoke Olubusi, Managing Partner of the fund, “The vision for MAGIC is going back to how early-stage venture capital began, which is, founders investing in other founders and supporting them through the journey. We’re going to keep scaling this up as much as we can, across different geographies and industries, and we’re very happy for the headstart we already have.”
Magic Fund is already accepting pitches from founders through their website. The firm has a keen focus on startups that build infrastructure while delivering a quality customer experience, especially in emerging markets.
